alex speier

Remember when the Red Sox appeared to have the best and deepest bullpen in the majors? Scratch that.

The team's bullpen officially arrived in the state of Chaos on Monday night, around the time that once-again closer Joel Hanrahan (who reclaimed game-ending duties with Andrew Bailey sidelined by right biceps tendinitis) gave up a game-tying homer in the top of the ninth inning and then, two batters later, summoned a trainer to the mound and exited with what manager John Farrell described as a right forearm strain.

Hanrahan's departure in the middle of the ninth inning of a 5-5 game (which the Sox went on to win, 6-5, in 11 innings) with a strained forearm represented a somewhat startling culmination to a day that started with Bailey's official placement on the DL. After all, the Sox had elected to trade for Hanrahan in part because they appreciated the potential value of having two established closers, each with a pair of All-Star Games to his credit, in the same bullpen.

While Hanrahan was immediately declared the closer, the value of having both he and Bailey on the same roster was obvious. If one was injured, the other could seamlessly assume ninth-inning duties.

The plan seemed to be working. Hanrahan faltered early and then landed on the DL due to a hamstring injury; Bailey took over and dominated in the role to such an extent that Farrell decided to keep him in it, deposing Hanrahan to setup status. However, days later, Bailey suffered his biceps injury, and so it was Hanrahan who resumed closer duties.

The Sox had fail-safe mechanisms built into their roster. With two closers of excellent pedigree, the team was in position to work through an injury without drastic disruption to the bullpen -- a fact upon which Farrell reflected prior to the start of Monday night's game when discussing the impetus for adding Hanrahan during the offseason to a bullpen that already included Bailey.

"Joel came available, he makes us better, and fortunately in the situation we're finding ourselves in, to have two guys we can build back to to close out games, it's certainly a luxury or a benefit on our part," said Farrell. "But when both guys are healthy, certainly that's our best team."

Approximately eight hours later, Farrell was left to digest the fact that neither pitcher is healthy. Hanrahan left the game when the feeling of a pull in his forearm left him saying, "I just couldn't take it anymore." He'll undergo an MRI on Tuesday. Clearly, he won't be availble, and so the Sox bullpen is subject to a state of flux.

Granted, Bailey is expected to be sidelined for only about one week more. Still, during that time, the Sox will be left to scramble.

When Hanrahan was peeled off the top of the bullpen two weeks into the season, Bailey stepped into his ninth-inning role and the structure of the relief corps remained intact. The Sox will not have that luxury this time around, resulting in the team's decision-making hierarchy (Farrell, GM Ben Cherington, assistant GM Mike Hazen and pitching coach Juan Nieves) huddling in the manager's office well past midnight to design a new late-innings formula.

"That's what we're going to go down and figure out right now," Farrell said, after the game, of who would close. "We've got a couple of guys out there that we feel confident they'll be able to close out games."

Still, the Sox hadn't had that conversation prior to Monday's game, and on a night when the team was trying to avoid using both Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa in a third straight game, Farrell acknowledged that he was left to navigate the late innings "carefully -- carefully."

The Sox will have to continue to do so.

Based on both his stuff, the fact that he's locked into outings of no more than one inning and he has a measure of closing experience (he was 13 for 15 in save opportunities as the Orioles closer in 2010), Uehara would seem a natural for game-finishing duties. However, it remains to be seen whether Uehara is available on Tuesday night.

Though he did not pitch in Monday's game, he did warm up and would have entered the game had it gone to a 12th inning. Undoubtedly, the Sox would prefer to stay away from him.

While the team places considerable value on the ability to use Tazawa in any game situation -- especially entering the game with runners on base in the middle innings -- he would seem to be the other alternative for save opportunities. Again, he has the stuff for the ninth inning, though a case can be made that he's less valuable when tethered to that frame than when he can be employed at any point in the game based on the most impactful situation. He also represents a more unproven ninth-inning commodity, as he has just one save in his career (a three-inning effort last April).

In many ways, the biggest issue that the Sox face isn't the identity of who will handle the ninth -- after all, Hanrahan already has yielded four homers while permitting more than a run per inning -- but instead who will replace him in the middle innings. Already, the team had been rendered thin by a succession of short starts (Clay Buchholz' six-inning outing on Monday night was the fifth straight in which the Sox starter didn't record an out in the seventh). Now, in addition to the depletion engendered by heavy usage, the need to reconfigure the bullpen and to remove one of the team's foremost setup men and put him in the ninth inning further compromises the late-innings order.

The return of Craig Breslow on Monday night (the left-hander tossed a scoreless inning, throwing 10 of 12 pitches for strikes and punching out a batter) should help. With Breslow joining Andrew Miller as left-handed options, and the relief corps still featuring swing-and-miss stuff from Uehara and Tazawa, the team still features a number of legitimate late-innings options. (And, with his gutsy 2 1/3 inning performance on Monday, Clayton Mortensen may have earned not just a victory but increased responsibility in the absence of the two Sox closers.)

Talent is not the issue. For the short term, availability and structure are the two areas in which the bullpen faces considerable uncertainty. It's quickly become apparent that a Sox bullpen that seemed almost overstocked when the season started is now in a very different place, at least while connecting the dots until Bailey's return next week. A late-inning adventure -- one that seemed unlikely a month ago -- awaits.

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